Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: And I'd like you to turn in your Bibles to John chapter 15. Abiding. Abiding in Christ. That's the old-fashioned word, but I still don't know any that I enjoy or like more. Remain. Continue. But abide, even though it's old fashioned, I think says so much more.

It has a sense of coming home about it. And I'd like to read the scripture before we start and think about what it means to know Christ and have him know us thoroughly and totally, utterly and then to let him live his life through us. "I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone doesn't remain in me, he's like a branch that's thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. For as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I've told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than he lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants, because a servant doesn't know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learn from my Father I have made known to you. You didn't choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: love each other."

Jill Briscoe: I can recommend sometimes finding a nice rocking chair or easy chair at home and just reading the scriptures out loud to yourself. It's therapy. Just let it roll over you. And perhaps read the whole gospel. Just take an hour and get a cup of coffee and sit down and if you can't read out loud for an hour, just just read it through. We we read the scriptures so much in little pieces.

Jill Briscoe: I mean, you would never read a narrative book that way, would you? You'd never open a story and read page 10 and then go to 45 and and and stay in 45 for four days and then go back to one.

Jill Briscoe: And the gospel is a narrative. It's a story. It unfolds. And even though we do need to look at it under a microscope, all over it, we just need to read it all the way through sometimes.

Jill Briscoe: And the passage that I've just read to you then comes in context of everything that's gone before and everything that's about to happen. Jesus is about to lay down his life for his friends. And he counts you and I his friends.

Jill Briscoe: In the upper room he was praying and he said to his disciples, "I pray for you." And then he prayed for them. And then he said, "And now I'm going to pray for all the people that will believe on me through you." And that's us. And then he prayed for us.

Jill Briscoe: And here he is talking about his friends. We are his friends. And he prayed wishes and desires for you and I that we remain, abide, continue in that God friendship. What a privilege.

Jill Briscoe: You know, I have some women say to me sometimes, "I don't have any friends." And if they're a believer, I always cheerfully say, "Yes, you do. You've got Jesus. And he's your friend." Now, that sounds a little cliché-ish, but it's true. If you have Jesus as a friend, who needs anybody else? If you think of it that way. Well, it's nice to have other friends as well. But he said, "I want to have a relationship with you that is like the closest friendship you could possibly imagine."

Jill Briscoe: And so let's look and see what that involves. What does it mean to abide in Christ? Now, salvation starts by accepting Christ. It continues as you abide in Christ. You begin with receiving the Holy Spirit. And as we will see that grafts you by grace into the vine, into a position in Christ.

Jill Briscoe: So salvation starts by accepting Christ, but continues in what is called in the Bible abiding, remaining, if you wish to use the NIV term here. Believe on Christ is the gospel to the world. Abide in Christ is the gospel to the church. It's the gospel to the church. It's the good news.

Jill Briscoe: That coming to Christ is only the beginning. Every time somebody is brought to me by a friend or I lead somebody to Christ, I always say the first thing I always say to them after praying with somebody or greeting somebody is, "You've only just begun. This is just the beginning." I always make sure I tell them that.

Jill Briscoe: So that right at the beginning of their new life in Christ, this life that works, they realize this is a continuum. This is only just begun. And ahead of them is this incredible world of experience that's called abiding, continuing, learning to walk step by step in tune with the Almighty God and all his power. And so coming to Christ is just the beginning. Abiding in Christ is what happens after that event.

Jill Briscoe: The last words of Jesus are here. If you have been reading the gospel from the start to the finish, we have begun the last words of Jesus to us on Earth in that Galilean body. These were his last words to his disciples, those disciples, these 12 and for us as well.

Jill Briscoe: And what he wanted us to know is he didn't want us to go up and down and up and down like this in our Christian life. He wanted our Christian lives to be characterized by steadiness and sturdiness. By steadiness and sturdiness.

Jill Briscoe: And so he gives this little metaphor, this allegory, this wonderful little picture. Christ always worked in pictures and pictures that were familiar to the people that he talked to. And he wanted to know that permanence would be the outstanding mark of those that professed to know the Lord Jesus.

Jill Briscoe: Ruth Paxson, in her book Life on the Highest Planes, says, "Abiding is a steady continuance in an already established relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ." In other words, it's a life that works.

Jill Briscoe: Now, this should be our heart passion. Our heart passion shouldn't be to survive as a Christian. To stagger along up and down, up and down, rather like Peter on the water. You're doing great for a minute and then you start to sink and the Lord hauls you out again. "Lord, save me!" And you walk a few more steps and you sink again. This is not his intention. He wants you to walk on that water as as we talked about last week.

Jill Briscoe: He wants us to so abide in him, and that denotes this intimate relationship. And remember in John 1, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God." And the word "with" is face-to-face.

Jill Briscoe: In the beginning, Christ and God the Father were face-to-face, equal and intimate. One did not have his back turned on the other. And this is the relationship, as Jesus and the Father had this relationship face-to-face, he offers us the same relationship, face-to-face. And that's what abiding's all about.

Jill Briscoe: Now, the picture, as I say, was familiar because over the temple arch was a vine with great big clusters of grapes. It was the national symbol of Israel. And when Jesus began to talk about a vine and branches, everybody clicked in. He used what was very familiar to the Jew, to the Jew that really knew his stuff. Every time he'd go into the temple, he would look up and this huge stone relief of a vine and branches was there.

Jill Briscoe: And all through the Old Testament, this metaphor, this allegory of vine and branches is used. And I'd like you to turn for a minute with me to Isaiah chapter 5, because this would be read in the synagogue and the people would be reminded of the prophet Isaiah and his love song, his wonderful love song.

Jill Briscoe: Isaiah in chapter 5 says, "I'm going to sing for the one I love." That's how he begins. "I'm going to sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard. My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up, he cleared it of stones. He planted it with the choicest vines. Then he built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it only yielded bad fruit, or sour grapes. Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it only yield bad? Now I'll tell you what I'm going to do to my vineyard. I'm going to take away its hedge and it will be destroyed. I'll break down its wall and it will be trampled. I'll make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated. Briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it. The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel." The allegory is explained. "The men of Judah are the garden of his delight. He looked for justice but saw bloodshed, for righteousness but heard cries of distress." He saw and received sour grapes.

Jill Briscoe: So this picture is very firmly in the people's minds and certainly in the 12's minds as he begins this wonderful allegory. He picks up this image from Isaiah and he says, "Look at me, look at me! I am the true vine," as opposed to the false vine, or the one that proved false, which was - and they all said, "Israel." They knew the answer. Israel was the false vine. Jesus is the true vine.

Jill Briscoe: Now, I want you to turn on to Psalm 80. Turn to Psalm 80. Now, you know that the Bible is history written in advance. History written in advance. That's the prophecy piece of the Bible. That's what makes the Bible unique among all religious books in the world. No other religious book has prophesied or written history in advance and seen it come to the tee to be. Only the Bible. Other religious books of other faiths have certainly prophesied, but the mark of a true prophet is whether it happens or not.

Jill Briscoe: And the Bible is laced with things that happen. And in Psalm 80, you've got one of those little pictures. This is a psalm written by the psalmist crying for restoration. God did take away the hedge. And Israel was trampled down. And God did command the rain and there was no rain and no produce. And he allowed those bears of the Assyrians and the little foxes to come in and destroy the vineyard, as the Song of Solomon talks about.

Jill Briscoe: Now here in Psalm 80, David is crying for restoration. "Hear us, oh shepherd of Israel." Look at verse 3. "Restore us, oh God. Make your face shine upon us that we may be saved. Oh, Lord Almighty, how long will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people? You fed them with the bread of tears. You've made them drink tears by the bowlful. You've made us a source of contention to our neighbors. We are trampled down this vineyard of the Lord. Our enemies mock us. Restore us, oh God." Now, look, "You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations. You planted it. You cleared the ground for it. It took root and filled the land. Mountains were covered with its shade and mighty cedars with its branches. It sent its bows to the sea. It shoots as far as the river. Why have you broken down its walls? So that all who pass by pick its grapes. Boars from the forest ravage. The creatures of the field field on it. Return to us, oh God Almighty. Watch over this vine. And here, despite himself and not knowing it, the psalmist is taken out of himself and what he is looking at. And this whole psalm takes on the future.

Jill Briscoe: The root or the branch - and that's the name for Christ, remember. "The root or branch your right hand has planted, the son you have raised up for yourself. This vine," read, "is cut down. It's burned with fire. At your rebuke your people perish. So let your hand rest on the man at your right hand. The son of man you have raised up for yourself. Then we will not turn away from you. Revive us and we will call on your name." Now, that's a good example of prophecy. David or the psalmist that wrote this psalm had probably no idea. And his thoughts were still in the present and the immediate and the past and what had happened. But here we read about the son at his right hand, the son of man, the true vine.

Jill Briscoe: And Jesus takes both Isaiah 5, the picture and allegory that's familiar to the disciples, and he adds to it Psalm 80, which probably was also pretty familiar to those men. And he links the two and he applies it to himself. Israel, God's vine, has failed to abide, to relate to, to stay connected to, to yield itself to the vinedresser's hand and so display the glory of a harvest of righteousness. So God lays his vineyard waste and chooses another vine, his only son, the son of man.

Jill Briscoe: Now, one of the commentators says, "As the entire race of Israel sprang from the patriarch Jacob, the new generation of God's people is here viewed as going out from Christ, originating from Christ, organically united to him as branches grown from a vine. Then this becomes the fulfillment of Psalm 80, in which the son of man is said to be the vine planted by God."

Jill Briscoe: So God plants his vine. He plants his vine in a virgin's womb. He plants his vine in this planet. Christmas. Incredible. And here we have him at the end of his brief, brief sojourn here among us as a man saying, "I am the true vine. I am the true vine."

Jill Briscoe: So Jesus planted by God. And the vine and the branches are under the care of who? The gardener. "I am the vine, my father is the vinedresser." And the vinedresser's job is to make sure the branches reach their full potential and bear much fruit, and this brings glory to the vine.

Jill Briscoe: In Isaiah 5, you get a wonderful picture of what happened and happens still in Jesus' time, although things had begun to change a little. You get the family who owned the vineyard doing the work. The family that owned the vineyard, the owner of the vineyard, got his hands up to his elbows in that earth. He did the work. He pruned the vine.

Jill Briscoe: And at harvest time, the whole family moved into the tower in the middle of the vineyard, because it was press time. It was time to press the grapes. And after the grapes were pressed, the vine, the wonderful vine, would be produced, and glory, honor, would be brought to the owner of the vineyard. And the more wine there was and the more quality it was, the more glory there would be to the owner of the vineyard.

Jill Briscoe: And so of course it is with us. In a sense, there is a tower within our life and the family, the Trinity, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, move in when we receive Christ. When when God, as it were, plants Christ in the vineyard of our lives. And brings honor to him when there is much fruit, much fruit.

Jill Briscoe: The passage, if you read it again, you read about fruit, then you read about more fruit, and then you read about much fruit. And the passage ends by saying, "It is by much fruit that the owner of the vineyard is glorified." Just as in a literal material sense, the more successful the vineyard, the more fruitful the vineyard, the more honor is brought to God.

Jill Briscoe: So the vine and its branches are under the care of the Father. And it is his job not only to protect his vineyard from the bears and the little foxes, but also to make sure that the vine is cared for as it should be. And that, unfortunately, means pruning. Pruning.

Jill Briscoe: We are the branches. Now, look at verse 2. "Each branch in me." He talks about being a branch in Christ, grafted by grace. That happens the moment you receive the Holy Spirit. As soon as you receive the Holy Spirit, there is something stated in heaven in some heavenly way. "This person is now grafted by grace into the vine. They are a branch."

Jill Briscoe: And you know what is the principle of the whole Christian life is here in this verse? Because the same life that is now in the vine flows into the branches. Think about that. The same life that is in the vine, after you are grafted by grace and accept Christ as your Savior and are put in a position in that vine spiritually, the same vine life is the branch life.

Jill Briscoe: There is not another life of the branch apart from the life of the vine. We don't live our Christian life sort of divorced from the vine in this sort of other sort of power. No. The life of the vine flows into the branches.

Jill Briscoe: And so of course we are able to bear fruit. I hear so many Christians say, "Well, I can't bear fruit. I can't do this." Well, there's something wrong. You haven't got the connection. You haven't got how it works. Because it stands to sense if you abide, if you rest. You don't see a branch twisting itself into a knot to produce fruit. "Oh, I got to produce fruit."

Jill Briscoe: It just abides, rests. Now, that doesn't mean you do nothing, as we will see. But it does mean that you get hold of this principle that when Christ comes into you, Christ comes into you. And you become, as Philippians says, a partaker of the divine nature. Little me, little you, little branches, little twigs. Same life that's in the vine is in the branches. We are the branches.

Jill Briscoe: Now, we have to remain in him and he will remain in us. No branch can bear fruit by itself, and without me you can do nothing. And the word means "no, not even one little tiny thing." Sort of emphatic. Emphatic. So what does he do? What is this pruning?

Jill Briscoe: Well, there are two things here. He cuts off every branch that doesn't bear any fruit. Why would he do that? Because there is no evidence of the same life in that branch. There are two things here. Cut off, number one. Secondly, cut back, number two. He's talking about two things and two different types of branches.

Jill Briscoe: Now, the puzzling thing is all the branches look alike. You look out in church, all you branches look exactly the same. Maybe some have got this color hair or that, and some are fatter branches and some are thinner branches, and some are sort of bent branches and twisted branches, but but we're all branches and we all look the same and we all sing the songs and we all we all do things in church, right? And there is actually no way that you can figure out who is an adherent or a nominal branch and who is a real branch. We can't do that. He can, however.

Jill Briscoe: Because if there is no evidence of the life of the vine in the branches, they're only stuck on the outside. It's a metaphor that Jesus changes all the way through the gospels. Do you remember the sheep and the goats? Well, you can tell the difference between a sheep and a goat, I always think. But it was another metaphor, and all metaphors and allegories fall down somewhere. Wheat and tares, that's a better one.

Jill Briscoe: Apparently, you can hardly tell the difference between wheat and tares. But in the great harvest time, in the judgment, the angels will come and separate, you know, etcetera, etcetera. So the metaphor is there all the way through. And here again, the branches. Maybe people look like a branch, sing like a branch, act like a branch. In fact, Jesus said in another place in the judgment day, people are going to say, "But Lord, Lord, I did this and I did that. I was a branch. I sat with all the other branches in church. Sang branch songs. My little branch fingers, I even played the piano." And he said, "There's no life in you. You never knew me."

Jill Briscoe: And so the evidence of a nominal or a real branch is fruit. And we'll talk about what that means in a minute. And so we've got dead wood and we've got live wood. The dead wood will be cut off, gathered in bundles and thrown into the fire. There's the metaphor again, Jesus uses frighteningly over and over again in his gospel. The live wood will be cut back. Why? In order to produce more fruit. In order that we might come to our full potential.

Jill Briscoe: A branch, if you think about it, if it has any feelings or ambitions at all, would want to be the best branch he could possibly be and produce the most fruit he could possibly produce. Then he would feel, "This is the reason I was born, and this is the reason I am in this vine in the first place." And they would be fulfilled, apart from bringing honor and glory to the God who made them.

Jill Briscoe: So we have dead wood and we have live wood. The dead wood, the branches are good for nothing. The live wood, the branches are good for something. And something needs to happen to them. Because if the vinedresser leaves the good branches alone, they will get little twigs and stuff sticking on them, and they'll get aphids, and they'll get little red spiders, and they'll get blight and they'll get mold. And so something has to happen or they'll have a a hard job. And and what they need is purging. And the word is different. Pruning and purging.

Jill Briscoe: And he uses pruning for the dead wood, and he uses this nuance on the word purging for the live wood. And purging includes the act of cleansing, cleaning. And the vinedressers of those days washed the vines to get all this stuff off them. And they used their clippers to purge, to clean up. But the word in its root means clean.

Jill Briscoe: Now, Jesus uses this word here in this passage, "You are clean through the word I've spoken to you." He uses it in John 17. "Lord," he prays, "sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth." And then he says, "You're all clean, except one who is a devil here. I've just washed your feet because your feet have been in the world." And Peter says, "Wash me all over." And Jesus says, "I don't need to. You're all clean through the word I've spoken to you." "Except one of you who's dead wood." That's Judas. "One of you is dead wood, but the rest of you are clean." He says, "You are clean, yet not all of you," in that passage where he's washing their feet. And so the picture is, the pruning is necessary, and the purging is absolutely necessary for those of us who are grafted in grace into the vine.

Jill Briscoe: Real union, real life, real fruit means that he has to cleanse us. So how does this work? Well, it works through the Spirit by the word. Through the Spirit by the word. The word of God. "Cleanse us through your truth." As we are in the Bible, we see the blight. We see the things that need cleansing, and we offer our little branch to God and we say, "Clean me up. Take your knife if necessary and get these little tendrils that grow on a on even a the best vine and and get rid of them and cut me back if you need to." Have you ever prayed that prayer? I've only ever prayed it once, and God answered it. So I stopped praying it after that.

Jill Briscoe: I was very idealistic and I was a student. And I remember in my little college room kneeling down and praying, "God, take your knife and make me more fruitful. And I am willing to be pruned." God said, "Okay." Started cutting me back and I thought, "Oh, better not pray that again." But you know, if we could be mature enough to be able to pray that, that would be great. That would be great.

Jill Briscoe: Not just, "Cleanse me, Lord, so I can feel better about myself." Not just, "Deal with this guilt, Lord, because guilt is such a horrible thing to live with, and I would really be so much better without the guilt." But, "Lord, cut me back so I could bring more honor to you." It takes a pretty mature person to pray like that. I'm not there, but I'd like to be. I'd like to be. By the Spirit, through the word, that's how he's going to do it.

Jill Briscoe: And also perhaps through affliction. Sorry about that. "Endure hardship as discipline," Hebrews says. "God is treating you as sons, for what son is not disciplined by his father?" Hardship is discipline. He cuts us back. He disciplines our lives by using the knife of affliction so often in our hearts and in our lives.

Jill Briscoe: And next time that happens, maybe you can say, "Oh, it's pruning time. That's what's happening. It's the knife." It sort of helps to know what's happening. And to thank the Lord that at the end of whatever it is you're going through, that there will be more fruit in your life.

Jill Briscoe: Now, let's look at what this fruit is. What is this fruit that's going to be produced? What is the end of all of this? John sees fruit bearing as the outward invisible sign of being a disciple, a natural evidence of life in the vine. But he talks about it in two ways, and so does the whole of the New Testament. First of all, character, and secondly, converts. First of all, character, and secondly, converts.

Jill Briscoe: We know, "By their fruits you shall know them." And we know what that means, don't we? That's another metaphor. "By their fruits you shall know them." And what it means is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, kindness, meekness, and self-control, the fruits of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22 and 23. We read about this fruit, actually, not the fruits of the Spirit, one fruit.

Jill Briscoe: And if you like, you can think of a cluster on one stem, and each grape has got a name on it, but one fruit, one bunch. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. You can't just take one of those little grapes and say, "Well, I'll bear this," and forget about those other things. No. God wants us to be a bunch, a cluster, a cluster of character that brings honor to God.

Jill Briscoe: And that cluster of character is described, and that's a series in itself, isn't it? As love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The natural growth of personal holiness. Love, being primarily concerned with the other's well-being, irrespective of the cost to yourself. Joy, the infallible evidence of the presence of God. Peace, the tranquility of order. Long-suffering, a situation where you're patiently waiting out a suffering situation, patience. Gentleness, sweet reasonableness. Sweet reasonableness. Are you gentle? Are you showing that fruit? And you say, "No, I'm majoring on this one." Well, don't major on what you're good at.

Jill Briscoe: God wants to bring the character of Christ. Actually, this cluster of fruit is describing the character of Christ, isn't it? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering. And remember the same life that's in Christ that produced all those fruits is in you, the branches. So the possibility is there. And Jesus doesn't want it just to be a possibility or a probability. He wants it to be a reality in our lives.

Jill Briscoe: I remember being attracted. You're always attracted to someone with this bunch of character fruit showing. And I remember at college looking at at girls that were believers, but I didn't know that's what they were. And and they walked around this great big grape cluster all over the college. And I think, "How do they do that? How do they show such patience in that situation, or how do they show such self-control, or how how can they be so loving to people that don't like them?" And and I'd start asking these questions, "Where where do they get this life from?" was my question.

Jill Briscoe: And the girl that led me to the Lord gave me a poem. I don't know when she gave it me, but actually the poem reminded me of her because she lay in a hospital bed and when I looked at her, I wasn't looking at a girl, I was looking at a cluster of grapes lying there. "Not only by the words you say, not only by your deeds expressed, but in the most unconscious way is Christ expressed. Is it a beautific smile, a holy light upon your brow?" "Oh, no. I felt his presence when you laughed just now. And from your eyes he beckons me. And from your heart his love is shed, till I lose sight of you and see the Christ instead."

Jill Briscoe: Fruit. And you know that is an unconscious thing? It's an unconscious thing. And I remember writing to Jenny and saying, "You brought me that sense of Christ. Not by trying to. You just were abiding and the same life in Christ was in your poor little sick branch lying in that bed. And I saw patience and long-suffering and all those other qualities in you, and I lost sight of you, Janet, and I saw the Christ instead."

Jill Briscoe: Now, that's what we're supposed to be doing. And yet, that's what we're supposed to be being. Not trying to do it ourselves like the branches that don't have any life. We cannot, without him, do any of these things.

Jill Briscoe: And so we have to ask him, "Help us to abide." And then the other aspect of it is converts. "You didn't choose me," says Jesus, "I chose you." "You didn't pick me. I picked you." I'm busy rushing around to gymnastics and not for myself, I assure you, but to watch my grandchildren and soccer, of course, and starts at some unearthly hour and you're still sitting there at 1:00. And what's happening? They're picking the team. They're picking the best. They're they're picking, they're choosing. And and I hate that actually, because it's fine if you're picked, but you look at all these little faces that are never picked and your heart really goes out to them. And you can't pick all of them because that makes nonsense of the whole system anyway.

Jill Briscoe: But oh, what joy when they were picked for the team, for the team that would go and exhibit their gymnastic skills, for the team that would be the select team. And God chooses a select team. He picks us. He picks us. And you know something? You don't need to try out. And if you did, you wouldn't be picked, and nor would I.

Jill Briscoe: He has chosen you. And the word "chosen" means he picks without you having to try out. Because he knows if you tried out, he wouldn't pick you. He hasn't picked you because you are a perfect candidate for being a Christian. He has picked you because he loves you. He said to Israel, "Do you think I picked you because you're the biggest nation on Earth?" "Well, I didn't." "Do you think I picked you because you're the cleverest nation on Earth?" "Well, I didn't." And he goes through this whole list of the reasons that he he didn't pick them. And then he says, "I picked you because I love you. I just chose in my sovereign authority, and who is to question it, I'll choose Israel. I set my love on you." That's what he did for each one of us here.

Jill Briscoe: And he put us in Christ, grafted us in grace into the vine. And he said, "All you have to do is remain in me. Don't let anything come between. Let me cleanse you. Be in the word. That will do it. That will be the knife that will cut off all those things, and I will wash you with the word and keep you clean. And what will happen is your character will begin to attract people to ask you questions, 'What is it about your life?' Like I asked questions as a student as I saw people with the life of the vine evidenced in their character, in their actions, in their attitudes, in their behavior. 'What is it about your life?'" And then that gives them a chance to make me a convert, to bring me to Christ so he can graft me into the vine and I can know the same experience.

Jill Briscoe: And God chose you and me for one reason, that we might go and bring forth fruit and that our fruit would remain. Both aspects of the fruit, the character he begins to work in us that we cannot produce ourselves, the Christian character, the sturdiness, the steadiness, the holiness of life, the godliness, the fruits of righteousness. That will remain. It will go on. He that's begun a good work in you will continue it. He'll remain in your life to finish that work and make you as Christlike as he can before you see him face-to-face and you're made perfectly like him. That's his work in you. That's what abiding is all about. That's the gospel of abiding for the church.

Jill Briscoe: And he will also enable you to bring other branches and help them to have that experience. He'll help us to work with nominal branches. Maybe there's a nominal branch sitting right next to you in church. And you know, when you're going to your small groups, what a wonderful chance to check out, "Am I dead wood? Am I sure I'm grafted in grace into the vine?" You have to make sure about that. And then what a wonderful thing that the branches can help each other to to know how to bear fruit, the convert side of things.

Jill Briscoe: And not only to bring people to Christ, but to make sure those people remain. And that's very important. We're too quick to drag people into the kingdom and then abandon them, and not to say to them, "The best is yet to come. You've only just begun. And let me help you. And what you need to do is this and that, and this person will sit down or meet with you week by week and help you to know how to do this and how to do this and how to do the other." We are responsible to see the fruit that we have influenced. Perhaps people that have come to Christ, remain, abide. And not only that, that they too will go on and bring other people and that that fruit would remain and abide forever and ever and ever.

Jill Briscoe: I remember years ago, I got sick. I had a pain in my stomach and so they took me into hospital in Liverpool. I was teaching at the time. And they said, "Oh, it's appendicitis." So they took my appendix out. And in those days they kept you in about 10 days. And so on the eighth day I thought, you know, it's really weird, but I still have exactly the same pain I came in here with. So I thought, well, maybe it's just healing. It'll be all right, you know. I was getting dressed to go home. My sister came for me and she said, "What's the matter?" And I said, "Oh, I still got I've got this." She said, "Well, they took it out. What have you got a pain for?" I said, "I don't know, I didn't like to say anything." She said, "I'm not taking you out if they haven't mended you." So she calls the doctor and she said, "You haven't mended her. She's got this pain." Same pain that she came in with. And so he said, "Well, she didn't say anything to us." So anyway, he gets me on the bed and he says, "Oh, well, it wasn't your appendix." So what should we try next? So I was poking around. He said, "Do you know something? You have got a huge internal hernia. You've got a hernia." I said, "Oh." So he said, "No, no, no, get her ready, get her ready. We'll have her back in the operating room. We'll fix the hernia, you know."

Jill Briscoe: So I get undressed. I get back in bed. And the doctor comes with all these little things. "Now, how did you get this hernia?" "I don't know how I got the hernia. You tell me, you're the doctor," you know. And he said, "Well, are you pulling anything?" And I said, "Well, just my motorbike." He said, "What do you mean your motorbike?" I said, "Well, I ride a sort of one like a Harley. I had this great big Harley motorbike." You didn't know that about me, did you? Well, my father sold them. It wasn't a Harley, it was a Dame La Puch, P U C H, an Austrian motorbike. Bigger than a Harley, and he wanted me to be an advert, so he gave me one. He gave my sister a car. I could never figure that out. And he gave me this motorbike, which I loved actually, and I went all over England on this motorbike. But it was heavy, it was huge, and I would pull it up onto its stand. And that's how I got the hernia. So he thought, anyway, which is nothing to do with this talk. Anyway.

Jill Briscoe: So here I am after the hernia, which was a lot more painful than the first thing they did to me, and I'm lying there for another 10 days. And I feel cut back. And that's what I was. I was curtailed. God had cut back my activities, he cut back everything. And however, I was old enough in the Lord, probably a couple of years, or not even that, to realize that the point of him engineering or allowing this to happen was somehow related to this ward of people around me. And he expected me to bear fruit, not only in my attitude to what had just happened to me, and it wasn't very good at that point. I needed to get that sorted out. And secondly, converts.

Jill Briscoe: Well, I noticed they didn't have a a service. They didn't have chaplains in that hospital in in England, and I don't even know if they have today, if they have chaplains in hospitals. But I noticed I'd had by now two Sundays and there was one to go before I got out. And so I said to my nurse, "Do you ever have a church service in here?" And she said, "Oh no, no, we've never had one of those." And I said, "I'll do one for you if you like on Sunday." And to my amazement, she said, "That would be wonderful." And she said, "Would you mind if we wheeled in everybody else from all the other wards that would like to hear this church service?" Well, I had never spoken in my life. And here I am offering to take a church service, still flat on my back with this hernia. And so that's what we did. It was too late to back out, and on Sunday, to my horror, the doors open and all these people are wheeled in in all these wheelchairs. They pull me tenderly into this wheelchair and sort of wheel me to the front.

Jill Briscoe: And I give this talk. It is an atrocious talk. I talked on the temptations of Jesus. Don't ask me why. It's probably the only bit of the Bible I'd read or something. But but it was totally wrong for the situation. It was probably a terrible talk. It probably had no form or substance, but I did my best. And at the end, I asked them if they'd like to be a branch grafted by grace into the vine. And all these people lying, you know, they're grown in the chairs. So, "I I I want. I I want." Well, I began in my wheelchair going around like fury around this war and and praying with this lady. And then this wheelchair, "Come over here, love. Come over here." So I'd go over here my wheelchair and rub it up to the other wheelchair and talk to them and then we pray.

Jill Briscoe: And I tell you, there was a harvest. It was so ridiculous. God loves to take the ridiculous and turn it into the miraculous. All he needs is a little branch that's going to say, "Okay, I'm cut back. Obviously you intend me to bear fruit, not only in my attitude, but also in my actions. And whether it's in a silly situation like that," and I tell you, every one of you here knows a whole lot more than I did, "or a situation you find yourself in with a whole lot of dead wood, he intends you to bring forth fruit. He chose you. He picked you for the select team that you will go and bring forth fruit. He intends it to happen. And as you rest in him, it will."

Jill Briscoe: Pray with me. Heavenly Father, thank you for your life, the life in the vine that flows into the branches. I thank you for this. What an incredible God you are that you would plant our lives with the choicest vine, Jesus himself. Now as we abide in him and as he abides in us, Lord, may we know practically what it is to allow your life to fill us, cleanse us by your word, and dare we ask you, be tender but use the knife in order that we might honor you and bring glory to you, the vinedresser. We ask it for your kingdom's sake. Amen.